Fire Shuts Totonno’s, Legendary Coney Island Pizzeria

Eisuke Wakabayashi, a tourist from Japan, at Totonnos pizzeria on Sunday, the day after a fire.Credit
Robert Stolarik for The New York Times

The same scene of heartbreak played out over and over on Sunday on a ragtag patch of Neptune Avenue in Coney Island, where the word “scrappy” may be better suited to describe the metal in the auto shops than any sort of community spirit.

Since 1924, Totonno’s pizzeria has been a beacon on the block, remarkable for its longevity, for the deliciousness of its food and, maybe most of all, for its ability to embody a host of Brooklyn-fuhgeddaboudit-pizza clichés — Oh! The sauce! The family atmosphere! The line out the door! — without collapsing under them. Totonno’s had it all, including a no-nonsense owner, Louise Ciminieri, known as Cookie to her friends, as happy to put you in your place as she was to put you in a seat.

Until Sunday, the day after a fire wrecked the place, closing it indefinitely. Firefighters were called at 8:44 a.m. on Saturday, and had the blaze out by 10:35. Three firefighters suffered minor injuries.

But is grief a minor injury? Drivers — some with parents sitting expectantly in the back seat — slowed and stared incredulously at the metal gates lowered in front of Totonno’s before throwing up their hands.

“I’ve been meaning to come here,” said a sullen Sergio Crespo, 32, who lives on the Upper West Side of Manhattan and had been trying to introduce his parents — and himself — to the fabled wonders of Totonno’s.

Sal Squadrito, 60, of Dyker Heights, Brooklyn, learned of the fire on Saturday from his daughter, and drove past on Sunday to see for himself.

“I figured I’ve got to take a look,” he said. “We’ve been coming here for years.”

Asked what he loved about Totonno’s, he gave the litany as familiar as a prayer: “The atmosphere, the ingredients — natural, good ingredients.” His favorite: a white pie with extra cheese and garlic.

The news was across the city, with telephones ringing as if there had been a death in the family. Helene Eisenberg, 70, and her husband, Don, also got the news from their daughter.

“This was our place,” said Mrs. Eisenberg, a lifetime resident of Brighton Beach.

Ms. Ciminieri, the owner, did not visit her restaurant Sunday. She’d seen enough on Saturday. But in a telephone interview, she sent a message to any people who feared they’d eaten their last Totonno’s pie: “Thumbs up! We’re going to rebuild.”

Of the inside, she said: “It’s pretty bad. It’s a lot of damage. I have to redo the oven, because the water got into the bricks. We’re going to fix that, rebrick it.”

An error has occurred. Please try again later.

You are already subscribed to this email.

But, she said, this has been done many times before, to repair cracks. “I promise you, it’ll be the same exact pizza,” she said.

The cause of the fire remained a mystery to her, as well as to the Fire Department. She said the coals from the fire that heated the oven were put away in a firebox at the end of the night Friday.

“For 85 years we’re doing the same thing, dropping the coals into the firebox every night,” said Ms. Ciminieri, who promised to kiss this reporter if he did not reveal her age. “Why would this happen now? I don’t know.”

The restaurant is an occasional stop on the Slice of Brooklyn Pizza Tour, led by Tony Muia, who spoke with reverence of the place on Sunday. “It really is part of the hierarchy of pizzerias here,” he said.

“Lombardi’s — Gennaro Lombardi opened that in 1905,” Mr. Muia added, as if to begin a dissertation, and then explained: There is a picture of Mr. Lombardi posing with his pizza maker, Anthony Pero, who was known as Totonno. Mr. Pero left the mother ship on Spring Street in Little Italy in 1924, shortly after the subway started running out to the hinterlands of Coney Island, and opened his own place there.

Eighty-five years later, Lombardi’s is reserved almost exclusively for tourists, with loudspeakers and hostesses using radio headsets. Not so Totonno’s, which is still open only five days a week and still closes early if ingredients run out.